{SA} Kelly Town Center • Mixed-Use • 200-Acres

[sirkingwilliam]

San Antonio Bizjournal

Port San Antonio moving forward with Kelly Town Center plans
San Antonio Business Journal - by Tamarind Phinisee

During last week's Civic Leaders Luncheon, officials with Port San Antonio briefly discussed plans to move forward with the development of a 200-plus acre, mixed-use project called Kelly Town Center.

If all goes as planned, the proposed project will include shops and restaurants, office space for firms providing support for Port businesses, and multi-family properties such as apartments and condominiums.

Bruce Miller, president and CEO of Port San Antonio, says some of these multi-family properties might include buildings with shops or stores on the bottom level and a couple of floors of apartments above.

The project, he says, has been two years in the making and is the outgrowth of a vision to make Port San Antonio "a quality place to live, work and play."

[miaht82]

Article taken from San Antonio Business Journal

The U.S. Air Force transferred 1,017 acres of land at the former Kelly Air Force Base to Port San Antonio as part of the local community’s ongoing efforts of revitalizing the former base.

Ever since the Department of Defense made the decision in 1995 to close Kelly, the government has been transferring several parcels of land over to the local redevelopment authority, Port San Antonio, for commercial reuse. Today, Kelly is known simply as Port San Antonio and is currently home to 65 business tenants, including The Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) and Lockheed Martin Corp. (NYSE: LMT).

This transfer of more than 1,000 acres represents the single largest land transfer to Port San Antonio since Kelly’s closure in 1995. The Air Force transferred a total of 1,446 acres of land to Port San Antonio, with an additional 440 acres slated to be conveyed by the end of 2010.

The Air Force completed the property transfer after the Environmental Protection Agency determined that all remedial actions on the land have been properly taken. The government has been working to address years worth of contamination at the former base, given Kelly’s history as a Air Force military aircraft depot. The EPA signed off on the environmental remediation work on the 1,000-acre tract on Sept. 22.

Now that the Air Force has completed this economic development conveyance for the 1,000 acres, Port San Antonio officials can proceed with the development of this acreage for any additional tenants.

Hopefully we'll hear of something new soon.

[miaht82]

Funny how the new tenants are more military and DOD civilians.
Privatization of military bases? What next?

From MySA.com business pages.

Link is there but I found one paragraph that just made me upset.

Building 171, at 485 Quentin Roosevelt St., is one of the city’s largest buildings at nearly 460,000 square feet. If erected vertically, it would rank among the largest downtown high-rise office towers. It has more space than downtown’s Tower Life Building (210,470 square feet), Central Library (240,000 square feet) and the Frost Bank headquarters (339,000 square feet).

Among downtown office towers, only the Westin Center’s 490,871-square-foot office tower is larger.

If only.....

But the point of the story is;

The call center workers will relocate by May 2009 to make way for the renovation for the 2,700 permanent Air Force workers, Jackson said.
...About half of the new military and civilian personnel will move to San Antonio from Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia and several other states. The rest are consolidating into the building from area offices, including some at Brooks City-Base.

Were moving more people here

New Port San Antonio offices also are under construction, and new air freight warehouses are being readied for the start of air freight services next year. An aviation museum is being discussed between the port and City Hall. St. Philip’s College Southwest Campus is expanding with a new building.

We're starting construction

If nothing else, the high-paying jobs at Building 171 and the increase of port employment to above 11,000 makes possible the industrial park’s plans for a “downtown,” a project called Kelly Town Center.
The port hopes retail stores, restaurants, hotels and additional offices will be developed, especially as the port’s streets are widened and extended to improve access from surrounding neighborhoods.
The port will seek proposals for Kelly Town Center’s development next year.

And hopefully we get this Kelly Town Center thing rolling.

Thanks to WWII and Building 171, Port San Antonio will have more people than ever to build on and a solid future.

[oldmanshirt]

Dude, if that makes you upset, it would really frost you to learn that the USAA HQ building has more square footage than the Sears Tower.

[KeepSanAntonioLame]

Apparently the USAA complex is the largest single tenant building by square footage in the country.